President Obama’s decision to cancel his planned trip to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin was the right thing to do in light of Russia’s decision to grant asylum to Edward Snowden. But it also illustrates problems of the president’s own making.

One of Obama’s chief aims upon assuming office was to remake the image of the United States in the world’s eyes. And he has — but not in the way he imagined.

Speaking in Cairo in 2009, Obama promised specifically a “new beginning” in American foreign policy. Many interpreted the speech to be merely a criticism of President George W. Bush’s presidency and, particularly, the negative response to the war in Iraq among Arabs and others.

But the comments signaled something more troubling, a critique of America widely shared on the left: that we are a nation no better than others and should behave accordingly.

As the president famously said in 2009, “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.” This view is common on the left but would strike most conservatives — and, I suspect, most Americans — as wrong-headed.

This is not to say the president doesn’t love America. Barack Obama and many others on the left love America; however, they don’t love the America that (SET ITAL) is (END ITAL), but the America they believe they can create. If only America could become the country the left envisions — egalitarian among our own citizens and deferential to the rest of the world — everyone would love us, or so they believe.

Obama took the left’s view a step further. He seemed to think his own personal charisma could overcome America’s benighted reputation with friends and foes alike. Remember, this is the man who thought he could sit down with Kim Jong-il, Fidel Castro and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and they would change their ways.

But instead of embracing Barack Obama and the new America he was creating, friends and foes alike came to view America as increasingly weak.

Certainly Putin seems to. How else could he grant Snowden asylum while patronizingly asserting that he did so on the condition that the leaker stops “harming our American partners”?

Putin has no interest in protecting America’s interests and certainly not if they conflict with his own vision of Russian self-interest. Putin’s only goal is to protect Russia’s interests.

Would that Obama were to act the same way when it comes to U.S. interests. Instead of behaving as president of the United States, he seems at times to fashion himself, as he has said on more than one occasion, “a citizen of the world.”

A weaker America makes for a more dangerous world. America appeared weak after the failed Vietnam War, which opened the door to Soviet expansion in Asia, Latin America and Africa and to the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Iran. In the 1990s, America was thriving as an economic force but seemed oblivious to the threats being directed at us by Osama bin Laden.

In both cases, American weakness provided openings for our enemies. The Ayatollah Khomeini took hostages at the American embassy in Tehran and held them for more than a year, and al-Qaida attacked the World Trade Center in 1993 and again in 2001, killing some 3,000 Americans.

It is difficult to predict what harm will come from our perceived weakness now. It already has allowed countries to ignore their duty to turn over a criminal like Snowden, but things could get much worse.

ALBERTO PEREZ: Rodeo clown mocks Obama, infuriates Democrats!

Missouri State Fair officials and politicians on Sunday condemned the performance of a rodeo clown who donned a mask resembling President Barack Obama during Saturday’s #8226 riding competition.

A tempest over the incident erupted after the website Show Me Progress reported a Facebook account of it.

The Facebook writer said he had taken a Taiwanese student to the rodeo Saturday night in Sedalia. During the #8226 riding segment a rodeo clown appeared wearing an Obama mask.

“The announcer wanted to know if anyone would like to see Obama run down by a bull the posting said. “The crowd went wild. He asked it again and again, louder each time, whipping the audience into a lather.”

The bull received a prize ribbon and a standing ovation from the audience.

RICARDO SAMITIER:

DIEGO QUIROS Sr:

Rubio: Obama Could Legalize Millions by Executive Order

Tuesday, 13 Aug 2013 03:51 PM By Bill Hoffmann and Todd Beamon

Sen. Marco Rubio said on Tuesday that President Barack Obama might be “tempted” to legalize 11 million illegal immigrants if Congress did not pass a comprehensive reform bill within the next year.

“I believe that this president will be tempted, if nothing happens in Congress, he will be tempted to issue an executive order like he did for the DREAM Act kids a year ago, where he basically legalizes 11 million people by the sign of a pen,” the Florida Republican said on “The Morning Show with Preston Scott” on Tallahassee radio station WFLA.

“Now, we won’t get an E-Verify, we won’t get any border security. But he’ll legalize them,” Rubio said.

Citing last year’s move to allow many immigrants brought here illegally as children to remain in the country legally, Rubio said delays on Capitol Hill could force Obama to grant the mass legalization.

And it would be done without any of the reforms included in the bipartisan Gang of Eight’s immigration reform bill that the Senate passed in June.

Story continues below video.

“It only gets worse as time goes on,” said Rubio, a Gang of Eight member in the Senate.

“Unless we’re going to try to round up and deport 11 million people, something that not even the most vociferous opponent of the bill proposed, then we are going to have to at some point address this issue.”

The Senate bill passed on a 68-32 vote that was backed by 14 Republicans. It includes provisions for a pathway to citizenship and increased border security.

The vote sent the bill to the House of Representatives for consideration.

But the GOP-controlled House has said that it will not vote on such a huge Senate bill, opting instead to address immigration reform through individual bills.

And House Speaker John Boehner, who vowed that the lower chamber would not take an “Obamacare-like” approach to immigration reform, has pledged to not bring any such legislation to the floor for a vote unless it has the support of most of his party’s members.

Republicans have consistently attacked the Senate bill, saying it amounts to little more than amnesty for 11 million illegal immigrants and that it does little to strengthen the nation’s borders.

Rubio told Scott that if Obama acted, the nation would miss out on the Senate bill’s technological advances along the Mexican border, drones, cameras, and more Border Patrol agents.

Under the bill, undocumented immigrants who were in the United States before Dec. 31, 2011, can apply for “provisional” resident status and eventually have the option of following a 13-year plan to become legal citizens.

But Scott told Rubio that he received many emails during the show from listeners critical of the senator’s work on immigration reform. Many of his listeners asked why the laws on the books now can’t be enforced more strongly.

Rubio responded that the current laws are outdated, with little incentive for installation of a national employment E-Verify system and weakened border-security laws.

“We can’t leave, in my mind, the way it is,” Rubio told Scott. “Because I think a year from now we could find ourselves with all 11 million people here legally under an executive order from the president, but no E-Verify, no more border security, no more border agents, none of the other reforms that we desperately need.”

Rubio is spending the first week of the Senate’s summer break on a tour of his home state of Florida to increase public support for his plan to defund Obamacare.

On Monday, the Republican lawmaker spoke to the Rotary Club chapter in Jacksonville, Tampabay.com reports.

He later spoke at his alma mater, the University of Florida, and then addressed the Gainesville Chamber of Commerce.

On Tuesday, Rubio was to bring his anti-Obamacare message to Panama City.

Well I guess is racial profiling? The white kid, earlier, complained to school administrators that one of the black kids, in this melee tried to sell him weed, therefore they (black kids) wanted to “teach him a lesson”.

Affirmative action at its best.

Where are the Sharpton’s and Jackson’s in this melee, also attached is the video

GULFPORT, FL – Gulfport police recently released surveillance video from a school bus that shows the bus driver’s perspective of a beating earlier this month.

In the video from July 9th, the victim is sitting in the second seat of the Pinellas school bus with his head down. The violence starts as soon as he stands-up to get off the bus.

The bus driver, John Moody can be heard yelling for somebody to try to stop them and calls dispatch for help, “I got a fight. I need help in a hurry, I got a fight I need help in a hurry.”

The punches and kicks continue, and the victim falls between the seats. At one point you can hear his screams on the video. The bus driver yells at the attackers, “leave that boy alone,” but doesn’t try to intervene physically.

Then he again calls dispatch to verify the address. “Get somebody out here quick, quick quick they’re about to beat this boy to death. There’s nothing I can do…please send somebody,” said Moody.

According to Pinellas school bus driver policy the driver’s first duty is to call dispatch, and only has to step in if they think it’s safe. They’re not required to intervene.

Gulfport Police Chief Robert Vincent has publicly questioned the driver’s lack of action even after the offending teens had left the bus. “There was time for him to intervene and or check on the welfare of the child in this case. He didn’t make any effort to do so and that’s what we want to bring to the attention of the prosecutor,” said Chief Vincent.

Police investigators turned this video and other evidence to the state attorney’s office. Prosecutors will determine whether to charge the driver with child neglect.

Obamacare Limit on Consumer Costs To Be Delayed a Year

Tuesday, 13 Aug 2013 09:29 AM By Melanie Batley

The implementation of Obamacare is suffering another setback, after it was discovered that a rule establishing a maximum limit in the out-of-pocket expenses people may have to spend on their own health care will be delayed until 2015.

The health care law stipulates that individuals will not have to spend more than $6,350 per year on their own, including deductibles and co-payments, while families would not spend more than $12,700.

But a little noticed rule in the legislation grants a one-year grace period to some insurers, allowing them to set higher limits or no limits at all on some costs in 2014, The New York Times reports.

The clause was established on the premise that insurers and employers may need more time to streamline the way they administer coverage and upgrade their computer systems to centrally keep track of individual out-of-pocket expenditures.

“We knew this was an important issue. We had to balance the interests of consumers with the concerns of health plan sponsors and carriers, which told us that their computer systems were not set up to aggregate all of a person’s out-of-pocket costs. They asked for more time to comply,” an unnamed senior administration official told the Times.

The delay is bad news particularly for people with chronic illnesses, including cancer and disabilities, many whom have tens of thousands of dollars a year in out-of-pocket expenses for treatment and medications.

The news represents the second significant delay in the roll-out of the president’s signature health care plan. In July, the administration announced it will not require employers to provide health insurance for their workers until 2015, prompting a wave a criticism about the viability of the law and the renewal of calls to repeal the program.

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